Single Malt Pig – actually 'How To Raise A Whiskey Pig'

A friend of mine (I’ll call him Brian for the while) sent me a clipping of an article from the October issue of POPULAR MECHANICS entitled ‘How To Raise a Whiskey Pig’ (p20).  And for those of you like myself, not quite a vegetarian but put off from eating the flesh of poor animals raised under modern standards of quantity at any cost to thought of consideration of the living conditions of those animals and the use of antibiotics as growth enhancers at any cost to the proliferation of ‘super-bugs’ that have now outstripped out ability to fight them with our ‘magic-bullets’ (as they said in the innocent days of the 30s) of vaccines, [wow long clause, eh], the thought of animals raised in small quantities in humane conditions that might actually taste great lead me briskly into this interesting article with its’ somewhat humorist twist.  You should read the article in its one page entirety to get the full well written impact but for now a quick synopsis.

Scott Bush, founder of Templeton Rye had the great idea to raise a batch of pigs on ‘spent’ rye mash to possibly get the unique flavor of the rye whiskey in their meat.  He hired a specialist (doctorate in swine nutrition) to determine just how much spent mash would be suitable for proper nutrition in the daily diet of the pigs – a breed called Duroc that they jointly decided upon as being best of choice.  Starting with 9 week old little piggies they fed them the crafted menu for 20 some weeks till they were each around 210 pounds and then turned them into marketable meat for upscale restaurants.  Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard who cooked one at her Little Goat Diner cheerfully says that there is nothing in the taste to indicate that there was 20% rye mash in their diet – but that indeed the meat was flavorful with guests commenting that the pig was the best they had ever eaten. 

So score one for small scale farming and one for trying an unusual feeding technique to jointly turn out a best in show.